Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) (4 page)

Chapter 3

H
elene knew that he was right. She had very few choices. None, really. But she could not accept his help if it meant that she would end up in his bed. That was just trading one form of oblivion for another, no matter how much she wanted him physically. It was impossible to have a fling with a Fae. Their glamour was too intense. Even if becoming Miach’s lover didn’t drive her mad, it would erode her will, her independence, her personhood. There was no way to remain immune from the sway of the sorcerer’s voice, his eyes, his intense charisma.

Unless they struck a bargain she could accept. “What do you propose?” she asked.

“If your surveillance cameras didn’t record you leaving the building, then this Fae took you somewhere inside the building.”

“But why?” she asked. The question had been plaguing her. “What could he possibly want in the museum? What could he possibly want with me?”

“Perhaps there are Fae artifacts in the collection that he desires. Some trinket he is searching for. Your position as chief fundraiser allows you to move freely through the building.”

“If he just wanted to steal something, why would he have to come back so many times?”

“The answer to that question most likely lies in your museum,” he said. “We will go there together and review the security footage for the days and times when you blacked out. If your Fae attacker was in the building, he might have been caught on camera. I should be able to spot him, even if he wore a human glamour. The Fae can hide from humans, but not easily from one another. And there are only so many free Fae aboveground. I will likely recognize him. Then I will find him, and kill him.”

Now came the part she suspected she wouldn’t like. “And if you can’t spot him in the surveillance footage?”

“Then you will agree to one of the other options. Elada’s protection, or my search of your body for the
geis
.”

The thought of his hands on her body made her flush. But it was a purely physical longing. And it probably owed more than a little to his glamour. Beth had said that the truly skilled Fae could insinuate themselves in your mind before you noticed, unless you kept your guard up at all times and learned how to shut them out as Beth had. And even then . . .

“I’ll agree, if you will make an additional promise,” she said.

He smiled. It drew attention to his wide mouth and his sensual lips. He liked bargaining with her, because he intended to come out ahead. “Make your condition,” he replied.

“You’ll stay out of my head. I don’t want you. I will never want you.”

His smile didn’t fade. “Agreed.”

It was too easy. Her brief brush with the Fae had shown her that they never gave anything away for free. “What’s the catch?” she asked.

“Your condition is based on a false premise. I have no need to be in your head. Because you
do
want me,” he said.

“Maybe. In some ways. But it’s like wanting chocolate cake for breakfast. I know I’ll regret it later, so I’m resolved not to indulge.”

Now his smile grew wider. “Does that mean you’ve
never
eaten chocolate cake for breakfast?” he asked.

“That isn’t the point. I want you to stay out of my head.”

“Very well,” said Miach. “I’ll keep out, until you give me permission to enter there.”

“I’ll never do that.”

“You never thought you would come here, either.”

“I had no choice.”

“You did have a choice. Between an unknown Fae assailant, and me. You chose the devil you know.”

“That doesn’t mean I’ll dance to your tune.”

“Perhaps not, but most do, when the music is played by a Fae.”

She shook her head. “Beth told me how it ends for humans, an affair with a Fae. Madness and death. Wasting away, pining.”

“I told you it wouldn’t be like that. It didn’t end that way for Beth. It wouldn’t end that way for you, Helene. You’re not a peasant fresh from the fields. You’re an educated woman with a strong mind, a career and interests. You’ve had lovers before me, and you’ll have others after.”

“You talk as though my capitulation is a certainty. But you’ve agreed to stay out of my head, and you can’t seduce me, because Beth placed a
geis
on you.”

“A minor impediment,” he said. “That only means that the first time, you’ll have to seduce me.”

She didn’t like his confident tone. It was possible that she had failed to see some loophole in their agreement, that he had some other means of beguiling her. Beth would know, but Beth wasn’t here. And there was no one else who could help her. She knew too little about his world to be bargaining with a Fae, but she had no choice but to trust him, at least until Beth came home.

• • •

M
iach called for his Porsche,
and Liam brought it up the gravel drive to the back door. Helene made polite compliments about the garden, which Nieve beamed at, as the garden was her preserve, but it was the car that captured and held the leggy blonde’s attention.

Helene liked the little roadster. He could tell by the way her eyes traveled the sleek body and the way she sighed with pleasure when she slid into the leather seat. That gratified him. There were Fae who despised all machines, the noise and smell and smoke of their engines, but Miach was not one of them. The Fae ability to
pass
almost instantly through great distances was a limited gift. Most of the
Aes Sídhe
couldn’t carry very much with them when they
passed
. Small items, yes, but the weaker Fae had difficulty with even a satchel or long blade.

And only a very few could carry another person with them when they
passed
. Miach could, but it drained his energies and left him useless in a fight. The Prince Consort was capable of it. He had abducted Beth Carter to Ireland that way.

There were still Fae who scorned any other means of crossing distances, but Miach had seen the possibilities in transportation as far back as the trading ships that had plied the Irish Sea, that brought back cargoes of spice and silk and later a delicacy the Fae had once had to
pass
great distances to sample: coffee. For Miach’s life today, with his business interests and his family, cars were a necessity. He’d even acquired a minivan for Nieve and Garrett and Garrett’s little cousins, although Elada refused to drive it—even just to reposition it in the circular gravel drive.

The Porsche, however, was no minivan, and Helene Whitney clearly appreciated it. In Miach’s experience, a woman who appreciated a fine car was a sensual woman.

And she was still ogling the car’s details when they crossed the Charles River. He found that very encouraging . . .

A few minutes later they became bogged down in the slow streets that ran through the university. The neighborhood surrounding the school was all narrow lanes lined with Georgian redbrick buildings and painted clapboard houses. The students walked in the streets, crossing back and forth between their classes and the bookstores and cafés that populated the square. It was charming, if you didn’t need to be anywhere in a hurry. As the minutes dragged on, Helene stopped examining the car and started to fidget. She had something on her mind.

When a juggler on stilts waded into the street and the traffic came to a complete standstill in the square, Helene turned to him and said, “I’m grateful for your help, but I want you to understand that the fact I came to you doesn’t mean anything. I came to you because I had nowhere else to turn.”

“How flattering,” said Miach. And completely untrue. Helene Whitney was a mistress of self-deception. She could have driven straight to Logan Airport, hopped on a flight to Ireland, and gone to Beth Carter. But she hadn’t.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, sounding almost chastened. “I just wanted to make it clear that I’m not like Beth. I’m happy. I haven’t had terrible experiences with men. I like my life the way it is. I’m not looking for anything else.”

“But you don’t have a lover at the moment,” said Miach. He knew because he had made it is his business to know. When she had begun dating a marine biologist on the faculty, he’d considered warning the bastard off. The measure had been unnecessary. The man had been married, and careless. Helene found out and ended it immediately. That had pleased Miach. The Fae were sensation hungry, could be hedonists when they chose, might invite others into their beds for novelty or sport if all parties were agreeable, but they prized loyalty. And so, it seemed, did Helene Whitney.

“No,” she agreed. “I’m not seeing anyone at the moment, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yes, it does. You’re older than Beth, aren’t you?” he asked. “Thirty? Even if you don’t look it. And you’ve never been married. You date, but nothing lasts longer than a few months. That means you’re looking for something and aren’t finding it. That you aren’t satisfied.”

“I’m not Beth Carter. I’ve had satisfying relationships.”

“But not satisfying enough to last beyond a few months.”

“Maybe I just
enjoy
dating.”

“No one enjoys dating,” said Miach.

“I thought the Fae enjoyed the thrill of the chase.”

“
Dating
is not the chase.”

“What is it, then?” she asked.

“Dating is a stale ritual. It has expected forms. Rules. Conventions. It doesn’t make your pulse race and your heart pound. It doesn’t veer off in an unexpected direction and reveal new vistas. It proceeds like a cart down an old, worn track, to a familiar, predictable destination.
That’s
why it bores you. And that’s why you never stay on course to see the end of the journey. Because you don’t like where it’s going.”

“And the chase?” she asked.

Her voice was cool but he could hear the breathless hitch in it.

“
This
chase,” he said, “ends with you under me, screaming.”

• • •

H
is words sent a physical
rush of longing through her body.

The men Helene dated didn’t say things like that. The men Helene dated talked about their academic pursuits or their investment portfolios. They took her out to dinner, to the symphony, to the theater. They were everything cultivated and civilized.

Miach MacCecht was not. Never. For one thing, he was as much a mob boss as he was a “businessman.” He would take and protect what he felt was his by all means, fair or foul. Coercion and the threat of violence were part of his basic vocabulary.

Beyond that, there was something forbidden and alluring about being the focus of Miach’s intense pursuit and passion. It was easy to see how Beth had succumbed to her Fae lover. Conn had fixed on Beth as his own, determined that he would have her.

And Miach had marked Helene. The place high on her inner thigh where his symbol had long since faded burned with warmth, and that warmth traveled.

“Stop it,” she said.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re making me feel things.”

“Perhaps I’m just focusing your attention on things you already feel, and expend far too much energy denying.”

“But you’re doing it with magic. You’re focusing my attention with your magic.”

“My voice has power,” he admitted. “A sort of resonance. I can’t just mute its power of suggestion. All Fae are born with that gift, and it is especially strong in those who practice sorcery.”

“I wish you could mute it,” she said honestly. “I can’t trust myself with you. I can’t tell the difference between what I feel and what you want me to feel.”

“There is a way,” he said. “For you to see me, hear me, without feeling Fae compulsion. If you were touching cold iron.”

His admission surprised her. The Fae did not give up their secrets or advantages lightly. And the image it conjured amused her. “So I should probably carry a fireplace poker, or maybe a Dutch oven around with me?”

Miach laughed. “The fireplace poker wouldn’t be a bad idea with some of my kind, but you don’t need quite that much iron to clear your vision and your hearing. Something small, a token, or a piece of jewelry. Preferably worn someplace I’m unlikely to touch.”

“Why? Are you allergic?”

A wry smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Black iron is poison to the Fae. Contact with it pains and weakens us. Iron blades are the only kind that can permanently scar our skin. We use it for some things, but we can’t work it. The Druids did it for us, forged the knives we used for ritual scars, and sheathed them with silver handles. They were master iron workers, the Druids.”

“How did they do it?” she asked. “Beth never told me. How did the Druids banish you when you can do the things that you can do?”

“Patience,” said Miach. “Patience and meticulous planning. They plotted for years. They hoarded cold iron, and made weapons from it. Iron filings were their most effective technique. They poured iron dust into our drinking water, filled catapult missiles with fine iron shavings. The ritual magic to fling us from this world into the next, and raise the wall between them, was something they had been working on for years. In our arrogance, we didn’t pay a great deal of attention to what they did in their temple mounds, so long as they made us the trinkets we asked for and carried out our commands. We didn’t know what else they were making in their forges. Their shackles and chains and cages.”